Boycott Star Wars

The new Star Wars bonus DVD erases elements of your Xbox’s firmware without informing you or giving you a chance to decline. This is apparently deliberate, as part of an “anti-piracy” effort aimed at punishing people who play the Star Wars DVD bonus disk in a modded Xbox.

Thank you, LucasArts. You’ve given me another good reason not to give you any more… although the fact that I don’t like Star Wars much helps. Personally, I agree with what Michael Moorcock said about Star Wars in his excellent essay Starship Stormtroopers:

There always comes the depressing point where Robin Hood doffs a respectful cap to King Richard, having clobbered the rival king. This sort of implicit paternalism is seen in high relief in the currently popular Star Wars series which also presents a somewhat disturbing anti-rationalism in its quasi-religious ‘Force’ which unites the Jedi Knights (are we back to Wellsian ‘samurai’ again?) and upon whose power they can draw, like some holy brotherhood, some band of Knights Templar. Star Wars is a pure example of the genre (in that it is a compendium of other people’s ideas) in its implicit structure — quasi-children, fighting for a paternalistic authority, win through in the end and stand bashfully before the princess while medals are placed around their necks.

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http://cheerleader.yoz.com/ Yoz

As a friend pointed out, isn’t this violently contravening the Computer Misuse Act? Do we know if the DVDs released in the UK have the same “feature”?